Dictators Quotes

That's what separates out American democracy from dictators and horrible governments across the world and the reason why that works is that we have a president that can consult with congress before making big decisions. That doesn't just make a unilateral decision to go in for military conflict. ~ Charles R. Chamberlain

Then there was David, lording it up at Buckingham Palace, thinking he was king of the shit heap. That guy was definitely nuts, like every dictator that had gone before him. Nero, Caligula, Henry the Eighth, Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Margaret Thatcher, Colonel Gaddafi, that crazy North Korean bastard who was in Team America, Kim Jong whatever. ~ Charlie Higson

The hearts of the people are good, but it's the hearts of the dictators that are small. ~ Anthony T. Hincks

I don't put much stock in powers that people have to hurt others, in sorcery and all this nonsense. There are murders and there are dictators. That is just a part of life. The intelligent use of power in yoga can assist you avoiding that side of humanity. ~ Frederick Lenz

When it comes to tyrants, dictators and terrorists, strength and the threat of force is the only language they understand. ~ Kevin McCarthy

Dictators can always consolidate their tyranny by an appeal to patriotism. ~ Aldous Huxley

When dictators feel their support slipping among adults, it is not unusual for them to alter school textbooks in the hope of enlisting impressionable youths in their cause. ~ Samantha Power

I will begin my presidency with a jobs tour. President Obama began with an apology tour. America, he said, had dictated to other nations. No Mr. President, America has freed other nations from dictators. ~ Mitt Romney

You don't know that. And now we never will." "We're agents of the United States government, not some Third World dictator's private security force. That is not the way we work. We don't have ~ Marcus Sakey

Certainly, blame for all this [turmoil in the Middle East] doesn't rest solely with the terrible decisions that were made at the end of World War I, but it was then that one particularly toxic seed was planted. Ever since, Arab society has tended to define itself less by what it aspires to become than by what it is opposed to: colonialism, Zionism, Western imperialism in its many forms. This culture of opposition has been manipulated - indeed, feverishly nurtured - by generations of Arab dictators intent on channeling their people's anger away from their own misrule in favor of the external threat, whether it is "the great Satan" or the "illegitimate Zionist entity" or Western music playing on the streets of Cairo. ~ Scott Anderson

The characteristic mark of this age of dictators, wars and revolutions is its anticapitalistic bias. Most governments and political parties were eager to restrict the sphere of private initiative and free enterprise. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

very early in Moderan the mighty Stronghold masters had solved for themselves the flesh-woman question, or, to be more precise, the wife-nuisance roadblock. And for that I honor them. I mean, my beamish hat is off to them, for that was QUITE a solving! We have no such problem, of course, in the essence times. If I don't like the beams of the woman I'm with, or if I like too much the beams of the woman I'm with and she won't reciprocate, I just signal back to the Love Dictator's office my discontent and he orders one of his little clerk mechanics to call the old beams home, and the Love Dictator then transmits me, personally, a new package. ~ David R. Bunch

When you review the Central American wars or other Latin American wars, you find that there were dictators and there were insurgents. ~ Alvaro Uribe

Dictators during the entire history of this planet have used similar techniques. By not letting the people of their country know what conditions existed outside their boundaries, they could get the people to fight to stay in those conditions. It was the old adage: Convince a slave that he's free , and he will fight to maintain his slavery . ~ Samuel R. Delany

A free press is one that prints a dictator's speech but doesn't have to. ~ Laurence J. Peter

In some departments of our daily life, in which we imagine ourselves free agents, we are ruled by dictators exercising great power. ~ Edward Bernays

Our greatest leaders are neither dreamers nor dictators: They are, like Jefferson, those who articulate national aspirations yet master the mechanics of influence and know when to depart from dogma. Jefferson had a remarkable capacity to marshal ideas and to move men, to balance the inspirational and the pragmatic. To realize his vision, he compromised and improvised. The willingness to do what he needed to do in a given moment makes him an elusive historical figure. Yet in the real world ... his creative flexibility made him a transformative leader. ~ Jon Mecham

When we're afraid, we lose all sense of analysis and reflection. Our fear paralyzes us. Besides, fear has always been the driving force behind all dictators' repression. ~ Marjane Satrapi

A universal draft is most often the instrument of Third World dictators. ~ Joe Bob Briggs

Laws become fragile under the influence of dictators. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

If you really want to help the rest of the world, what you've got to do is encourage free markets, private property rights and the strong rule of law and get rid of the dictators in a lot of these countries. ~ Dave Brat

To my knowledge there are no good records that have been built by institutions run by committee. In almost all cases the great records are the product of individuals, perhaps working together, but always within a clearly defined framework. Their names are on the door and they are quite visible to the investing public. In reality outstanding records are made by dictators, hopefully benevolent, but nonetheless dictators. ~ Peter Cundill

But clothing themselves in the trappings of democracy, dictators may, like drag queens, tend to overdo it, and Napoleon wanted there to be no doubt that his French Republic was more democratic than any before it. ~ Tom Reiss

There is no doubt that we have defeated too many dictators; but we must not forget that the religion is still out there. ~ M.F. Moonzajer

I yawned awake ready to blow stuff up like a 90s action-star. I'd become what I despised, a misguided schmuck following the status-quo for the sole purpose of fitting in. Whatever... gunrunners, terrorists, bankers, dictators, goons; we all have it coming. ~ Bruce Crown

When I was in high school in the early 1970s, we knew we were running out of oil; we knew that easy sources were being capped; we knew that diversifying would be much better; we knew that there were terrible dictators and horrible governments that we were enriching who hated us. We knew all that and we did really nothing. ~ Carl Safina

Just because we feel offended doesn't mean we must be offended. Feelings are indicators not dictators. ~ Lysa TerKeurst

Dictators are rulers who always look good until the last ten minutes. ~ Jan Masaryk

Whatever promises offered by dictators in any negotiated settlement, no one should ever forget that the dictators may promise anything to secure submission from their democratic opponents, and then brazenly violate those same agreements. ~ Gene Sharp

When the dictators and the opportunists are gone, the cross will still stand before us and something in us will say, 'That is the real thing.' ~ Ralph W. Sockman

A black Mercedes Benz 450 SL pulled up. It was your classic hood auto beloved of terrorists, pimps and African dictators. ~ Adrian McKinty

Dictating to dictators doesn't work; they are congenitally delusional about their own indispensability. ~ Joe Klein

The president, who finds so much to complain about in other areas of the world, apparently saw nothing wrong in recognizing a Communist regime that has killed more people in its short history of control over the teeming millions of that great country than any other collection of dictators or tyrants in the history of the world. ~ Barry Goldwater

Is is true that dictators never dream because they can change their smallest fantasies into realities if they want to? ~ Alfred De Musset

There will never be peace until God's house and God's people are given their rightful place of leadership at the top of the world. How can there be peace when drunkards, drug dealers, communists, atheists, New Age worshipers of Satan, secular humanists, oppressive dictators, greedy money changers, revolutionary assassins, adulterers, and homosexuals are on top ... There is absolutely no way that government can operate successfully unless led by godly men and women operating under the laws of the God of Jacob ~ Pat Robertson

Timing: The alpha and omega of aerialists, jugglers, actors, diplomats, publicists, generals, prizefighters, revolutionists, financiers, dictators, lovers. ~ Marlene Dietrich

The Internet is empowering everybody. It's empowering Democrats. It's empowering dictators. It's empowering criminals. It's empowering people who are doing really wonderful and creative things. ~ Rebecca MacKinnon

Money comes to Switzerland through three illegal sources: tax evasion in other developed countries, the blood money of dictators and other rulers in the Third World and organized crime. ~ Jean Ziegler

My fine friends who are perfectionists, each in their own world where they are petty dictators, could write a perfect bill. Those of us who have grown up and matured ... understand that we have to work together on the big issues. ~ Newt Gingrich

Terrorism works better as a tactic for dictatorships, or for would-be dictators, than for revolutionaries. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Dictators are allergic to reform, and they are cunning survivors. They will do whatever it takes to preserve their power and wealth, no matter how much blood ends up on their hands. They are master deceivers and talented manipulators who cannot be trusted to change. ~ George Ayittey

The fascinating thing to a dispassionate observer about the structure of life in the Soviet Union is that in their efforts to produce an unknown that we may let its ideologists call Socialism the Communist dictators have produced a brutal approximation of monopoly Capitalism, a system that has all the disadvantages of our own, with none of the palliatives which come to us from surviving competition and from the essential division of economic and political power which has so far made it possible for the humane traditions of the Western world to continue. ~ John Dos Passos

The loyal dogs of a dictator are much more dangerous than the dictator himself because a dictator can bite you only through his supporters. Without his dogs, he is nothing! More's the pity, the world history is full of such loyal biters! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

The dictators of the world say that if you tell a lie often enough, why, people will believe it. Well, if you tell the truth often enough, they'll believe it and go along with you. ~ Harry Truman

Libraries are the mainstays of democracy. The first thing dictators do when taking over a country is close all the libraries, because libraries are full of ideas and differences of opinion, all the things we say we want in a free and open society. So keep 'em, fund 'em, embrace and cherish 'em. ~ David Baldacci

A gigantic crowd of one million persons was gathered on the Maifeld to hear the two fascist dictators speak their pieces. Mussolini, orating in German, was carried away by the deafening applause - and by Hitler's flattering words. ~ William L. Shirer

A public library is the most democratic thing in the world. What can be found there has undone dictators and tyrants: demagogues can persecute writers and tell them what to write as much as they like, but they cannot vanish what has been written in the past, though they try often enough ... People who love literature have at least part of their minds immune from indoctrination. If you read, you can learn to think for yourself. ~ Doris Lessing

I'm not helping you kill anybody else. It's just not happening. I'm done.""What makes you think you have a choice?""You know why? I'll tell you. Because we were just kissing in the street, and deep down, I don't believe you could actually blow up my house or kill my sister. I just don't, and she's probably not even in the house anymore anyway, so if you want to go in there and shoot somebody, fine, but you're on your own."Gobi paused, seeming to consider all of this. "What is it that you want to hear from me, Perry? Do you want me to tell you that these are bad people that I am killing tonight? Because they are. They are very bad people. They deserve to die, each and every one of them.""Nobody deserves to die.""Oh, really?""Okay, I mean, maybe people like Hitler and Pol Pot . . . dictators, tyrants, African warlords who starve their people into submission . . . but that guy at the bar wasn't an evil man.""How do you know? Because he had drinks with Hemingway?""I just know. ~ Joe Schreiber

There is an undeniable web connecting incidents such as the rise to power of dictators... poverty and the perception of human beings as disposable property. ~ Beatrice Rose Roberts

If we try to engineer outcomes, if we overturn tradition to make everyone the same, we ruin society. If we upset tradition to allow for an equal shot at the starting gate, everyone wins, except for the charlatans and would be dictators. ~ Ben Stein

One might have thought that the Cold War's conclusion would have convinced the Left that appeasement of dictators is not profitable. ~ Mona Charen

The world is full of little dictators trying to run your life. ~ Alan King

I've played so many historical characters because most horrible dictators are short, fat, middle-aged men. ~ Bob Hoskins

It could be that all awful dictators are frustrated artists - Mao with his poetry and Mussolini with his monuments. Stalin was once a journalistic hack, and I can personally testify to how frustrated they are. Pol Pot left a very edgy photo collection behind. And Osama seems quite interested in video. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

We live in an age of equivocal competency: if you want, you can be a competent dictator, a competent self-promoter, a competent terrorist. Just because you can do something well does not mean you should be doing it. ~ Clifford Cohen

The Shadow had no imagination. He neither looked at naked women nor thought of ridding the world of dictators like Hitler or Mussolini. ~ E.L. Doctorow

It was far easier for me to see how the war in Syria was in part an unintended consequence of other American wars, no matter how well-meaning they might have been. The toppling of "Saddam Hussein had strengthened Iran, provoked Putin, opened up a Pandora's box of sectarian conflict that now raged in Iraq and Syria, and led to an insurgency that had given birth to ISIL. The toppling of Muammar Gaddafi had made plain to dictators that you either cling to power or end up dead in a sewer. Syria looked more and more like a moral morass - a place where our inaction was a tragedy, and our intervention would only compound the tragedy. Obama kept probing for options that could make a positive difference, finding none. ~ Ben Rhodes

Were there peace and justice in the Middle East, the Arabs would no more need their tinhorn dictators than they would their corpulent princes. ~ James Buchan

All dictators, the rich and famous, to the lowest security guard who holds a gun, easily forget that power is transitory. ~ F. Sionil Jose

I've never understood one thing: Why do all these megalomaniac dictators, secret societies, mad scientists, and totalitarian aliens want to rule the world? I mean really? Don't they know what a pain in the neck it is to be in charge? People are always making unreasonable demands of kings. Please save us from the invading Vandal hoards! Please make sure we have proper sanitation to prevent the spread of disease! Please stop beheading your wives so often; it's ruining the rugs! ~ Brandon Sanderson

Tyrants and dictators will accept no other gods before them. They require disobedience to the First Commandment. They seek absolute control and are threatened by faith in God. They fear only the power they cannot possess - the power of truth. So they resent the living example of the devout, especially the devotion of a unique people chosen by God. ~ George W. Bush

In class, we were discussing the concept of the villain in the novel. I had mentioned that Humbert was a villain because he lacked curiosity about other people and their lives, even about the person he loved most, Lolita. Humbert, like most dictators, was interested only in his own vision of other people. He had created the Lolita he desired, and would not budge from that image. ~ Azar Nafisi

Leaders should never, ever try to look cool - that's for dictators ~ Ben Elton

Most dictators were short, fat, middle-aged and hairless. Besides Danny Devito, there's only me to play them. ~ Bob Hoskins

We have our difficulties, true; but we are a wiser and a tougher nation than we were in 1932. Never have there been six years of such far flung internal preparedness in all of history. And this has been done without any dictator's power to command, without conscription of labor or confiscation of capital, without concentration camps and without a scratch on freedom of speech, freedom of the press or the rest of the Bill of Rights. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

You aime lots of stupid crap. While Hassan worked to make God hates baguettes
Colin's mind raced like this:
(1) baguettes (2) Katherine XIX (3) the ruby necklace he'd bought her five months and seventeen days before (4) most rubies come from India, which (5) used to be under control of the United Kingdom, of which (6) Winston Churchill was the prime minister, and (7) isn't it interesting how a lot of good politicians, like Churchill and also Gandhi, were bald while (8) a lot of evil dictators, like Hitler and Stalin and Saddam Hussein, were mustachoied? But (9) Mussolini only wore a mustache sometimes, and (10) lost of good scientists had mustaches, like the Italian Ruggero Oddi, who (11) discovered (and named for himself) the intestinal tract's spinchter of Oddi, which is just one of several lesser-known sphicnters like (12) the pupillary spinchter. ~ John Green

I'm trying to learn more about international law to understand why we don't have better solutions for conflict - for dictators or aggressors that are hurting or raping children or using them as child soldiers. Why can't we have an international community handle these things in a swift, efficient manner? ~ Angelina Jolie

Debt is a task master to be feared almost as much as the dictators themselves. It has enslaved thousands in its meshes. It has wrecked happy homes. ~ Stephen L. Richards

Dictators aren't stupid, or regimes could be toppled easily by young people mobilizing on Facebook. ~ Evgeny Morozov

Dictators from the past, tyrants, were not unaware that it is easier to govern and enslave a nation of drinkers than that of abstainers. ~ Samael Aun Weor

Against the odd's, I have persevered, I am the living attestation of the American dream. I am the extolment of this great nation. I have coffee and cocktails with presidents and dictators. I'm an international figure, a citizen of the world. I've made it. ~ Don King

In my view dictators do not surrender. They have to be well and truly defeated. ~ Margaret Thatcher

There's a long history in the Middle East of "bread intifadas," starting with 1977 in Egypt, when Anwar Sadat tried to lift bread subsidies. People rebelled and poured into Tahrir Square, shouting slogans against the government just like they did earlier this year. Sadat learned his lesson and kept bread subsidies in place, and so did a host of other Middle Eastern dictators - many of whom were propped up for years by the West, partly through subsidized American wheat. ~ Annia Ciezadlo

If, then, we wish to make large-scale reforms which will not stultify themselves in the process of application, we must choose our measures in such a way that no violence or, at the worst, very little violence will be needed to enforce them. (It is worth noting in this context that reforms carried out under the stimulus of the fear of violence from foreign neighbours and with the aim of using violence more efficiently in future international wars are just as likely to be self-stultifying in the long run as reforms which cannot be enforced except by a domestic terror. The dictators have made many large-scale changes in the structure of societies they govern without having had to resort to terrorism. The population gave consent to these changes because it had been persuaded by means of intensive propaganda that they were necessary to make the country safe against "foreign aggression." Some of these changes have been in the nature of desirable reforms; but in so far as they were calculated to make the country more efficient as a war-machine, they tended to provoke other countries to increase their military efficiency and so to make the coming of war more profitable. But the nature of modern was is such that it is unlikely that any desirable reform will survive the catastrophe. Thus it will be seen that intrinsically desirable reforms, accepted without opposition, may yet be self-stultifying if the community is persuaded to accept them by means of propaganda that plays upon its f ~ Aldous Huxley

You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home
all the more powerful because forbidden
terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic. ~ Winston S. Churchill

Noriega wound up like a baseball pitcher on top of the bed and hurled the small gun, but was low and outside for a ball. His tight-fitting house dress was bunched up high on his chubby thighs, exposing olive drab underwear.
I see London, I see France, I see a crazy dictator's underpants!
Chase's thoughts raced. ~ Cole Alpaugh

I think that, from Vaclav Havel own experience, he knew if we all paid attention to what was going on, the chances were that even the most horrible dictators wouldn't execute people. ~ Judy Woodruff

If you would know, therefore, who are the fascists in America, you must ask yourselves not who are the men and women most vocal in their denunciations of Hitler and Mussolini. The most ardent enemies of those two leaders were some of their rival fascist dictators in Europe. The test of fascism is not one's rage against the Italian and German war lords. The test is - how many of the essential principles of fascism do you accept and to what extent are you prepared to apply those fascist ideas to American social and economic life? When you can put your finger on the men or the groups that urge for America the debt-supported state, thee autarchial corporative state, the state bent on the socialization of investment and the bureaucratic government of industry and society, the establishment of the institution of militarism as the great glamorous public-works project of the nation and the institution of imperialism under which it proposes to regulate and rule the world and, along with this, proposes to alter the forms of our government to approach as closely as possible the unrestrained, absolute government - then you will know you have located the authentic fascist. ~ John T. Flynn

Today the primary threat to the liberties of the American people comes not from communism, foreign tyrants or dictators. It comes from the tendency on our own shores to centralize power, to trust bureaucracies rather than people. ~ George Allen

The older dictators fell because they could never supply their subjects with enough bread, enough circuses, enough miracles, and mysteries. Under a scientific dictatorship, education will really work' with the result that most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution. There seems to be no good reason why a thoroughly scientific dictatorship should ever be overthrown. ~ Aldous Huxley

Saudi Arabia is the most fragile of all Arab states, though we're not saying so. And, unfortunately, bin Laden puts his finger on the other longstanding injustices in the Arab world: the continued occupation of Palestinian land by the Israelis; the enormous, constant Arab anger with the tens of thousands of Iraqi children who are dying under sanctions; the feelings of humiliation of millions of Arabs living under petty dictators, almost all of whom are propped up by the West. ~ Robert Fisk

Perfection spawns doctrines, dictators and totalitarian ideas. ~ Antonio Tabucchi

In the exhibition at Galerie Perrotin, they have the Sarajevo painting - I think it's very good to nail down this story of Pol Pot and other people, not all dictators but most of them. ~ Erro

You know history better than I do, you've been teaching all your life. Without real opposition you get dictators down the line. Idi, Amin, Mugabe. No democracy without opposition. ~ Nadine Gordimer

Being consistent meant not departing from convictions already formulated; being a leader meant making other persons accept these convictions. It was a narrow track, and a one-way, but a person might travel a considerable distance on it. A number of dictators have. ~ Jessamyn West

Frank Lowy is an institution in Australian sport but judging by this decision he might be visiting a different kind of institution. He has brought the game into disrepute. The sport should not be run by dictators like him. ~ Clive Palmer

If sex and creativity are often seen by dictators as subversive activities, it's because they lead to the knowledge that you own your own body (and with it your own voice), and that's the most revolutionary insight of all. ~ Erica Jong

In pursuit of his ends, Jefferson sought, acquired, and wielded power, which is the bending of the world to one's will, the remaking of reality in one's own image.33 Our greatest leaders are neither dreamers nor dictators: They are, like Jefferson, those who articulate national aspirations yet master the mechanics of influence and know when to depart from dogma. Jefferson had a remarkable capacity to marshal ideas and to move men, to balance the inspirational and the pragmatic. To realize his vision, he compromised and improvised. The willingness to do what he needed to do in a given moment makes him an elusive historical figure. ~ Jon Meacham

Mostly actors are progressive because we are accustomed to all the nuances of human life, whereas dictators just try to flatten it all out. So we usually try to stand up to dictators like, well, we won't mention names. ~ Jane Fonda

The war against ISIS will pose many new challenges for the next commander-in-chief. The last two presidents [George W. Bush and Barack Obama] pursued a Middle East policy that supported toppling dictators to try to promote democracy. ~ Wolf Blitzer

Why even dictate?
Well, like a lot of other dictators, there's one man's opinion I value above all others. Mine. ~ Stephen Colbert

I never read the paper myself. Why bother? It's the same old shit day in and day out, dictators beating the ching-chong out of people weaker than they are, men in uniforms beating the ching-chong out of soccer balls or footballs, politicians kissing babies and kissing ass. ~ Stephen King

If we want to protect people against dictators or repression or torture, don't you need that rule to be universal so as to not end up with a situation where we do so only when it is comfortable, profitable and safe? ~ Donald Tusk

Further, democratic negotiators, or foreign negotiation specialists accepted to assist in the negotiations, may in a single stroke provide the dictators with the domestic and international legitimacy that they had been previously denied because of their seizure of the state, human rights violations, and brutalities. Without that desperately needed legitimacy, the dictators cannot continue to rule indefinitely. ~ Gene Sharp

How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn. ~ Orson Scott Card

If you follow the devil, your journey will end up in the hell! This is what happens to those who follow the dictators! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

I don't think it's hypothetical whether or not it's a good idea to topple secular dictators in the Middle East and hope to get a good outcome and hope that stability comes thereafter. ~ Rand Paul

We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace. ~ George W. Bush

When even the dictators of today appeal to reason, they mean that they possess the most tanks. They were rational enough to build them; others should be rational enough to yield to them. ~ Max Horkheimer

Dictators long ago found out it is easier to unite people in common hatred than common love. ~ Dagobert D. Runes